


The Black Tapes

by WinchesterTommo



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe- The Black Tapes, Based on a podcast, Enemies to Friends, Ghosts, M/M, Ryan is a podcast journalist, Shane is a Big Time Skeptic, this is a friendship fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 12:10:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14355165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterTommo/pseuds/WinchesterTommo
Summary: “You’re talking about Madej, right? Don’t waste your time,”Of course he wasn’t talking about Madej. Not yet. He wasn’t talking about anyone in particular, but he was starting to notice that name, Madej, kept coming up.ORThe one where Ryan is Alex Reagan and Shane is Richard Strand.





	The Black Tapes

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't listened to The Black Tapes podcast, you should bc it's super good. That being said, this can be read w/o any knowledge of the podcast. This is also only based on the podcast and will diverge from its canon storyline.

“So,” Ryan shifted in his seat, slightly intimidated by the high-profile ghost hunter he was seated across from. “Dr. Emily Dumont, I thank you for taking this time to talk to me.” 

“Of course,” she smiled warmly at Ryan as if she could sense his nerves. 

“Now, before we get into the nitty gritty of what you do, I have to mention the elephant in the room. There are a whole lot of non-believers who discredit what you do.”

“Yes,” Dr. Dumont spoke confidently, “that will happen when you’re working in a ground-breaking field such as my own.”

“If I’m being honest,” Ryan adjusted his position to make sure he appeared friendly, not wanting to offend Dumont, “I’ve heard from a lot of peo-” Ryan was cut off by a visually annoyed Dumont.

“You’re talking about Madej, right? Don’t waste your time,” Dumont scoffed at the name and rolled her eyes. 

Of course he wasn’t talking about Madej. Not yet. He wasn’t talking about anyone in particular, but he was starting to notice that name, Madej, kept coming up. Ryan jotted the name down on his notepad and continued the interview, but he made sure to keep the importance of the name in the back of his mind. He was determined get an interview with this Madej guy. 

…

“I don’t know, Steven,” Ryan sighed as he pled his case, “I really just have a good feeling about this Madej guy. I know we originally decided that this podcast would be about weird jobs in general, but I really think there’s more to the story with this ghost hunter stuff. Specifically if we can get in contact with Mr. Madej.”

Steven sighed. He looked tired. Ryan couldn’t blame him for that. The two had been working tirelessly on the podcast. Steven had flawlessly executed his part as producer, and now Ryan was asking him to throw that all away based on a gut feeling. But Ryan and Steven trusted each other. 

“Alright,” Steven conceded, “we’ll extend this ghost hunter thing.”

“Thank you!” Ryan excitedly clapped, and Steven smiled fondly at his dorky partner. “You won’t regret it.” 

“And I’ll even ask around about this Madej guy. What’s his full name again?” Steven added, and Ryan responded almost immediately.

“Shane! Shane Madej. From what I know about him, he’s some type of scientist or something of the sort. He’s also the world’s biggest skeptic. He’s convinced ghosts aren’t real. So much so that he’s offered a one million dollar reward for anyone who can offer rock solid evidence of the paranormal,” Ryan explained and Steven nodded along.

“That’s one confident dude,” Steven cut in. “I don’t think I’m sure enough about anything to bet a million dollars on it.”

“Right!” Ryan agrees, getting excited about the potential he’s convinced the story has. “I also know he’s practically impossible to get in contact with. I’ve called his office multiple times and every time his assistant tells me he’ll relay my message to Madej, but so far I haven’t heard back.”

“Alright, I’ll see if anyone I know has an in with him, but for now keep digging and see what you can find on him.”

…

Ryan took a deep breath as he approached the large building. He was both nervous and excited for the interview he was about to walk into. 

“I’m returning one of six calls from a Ryan Bergara,” The voice had sounded both annoyed and impressed on the voicemail. 

Said voicemail had set up a meeting time between Ryan and Mr. Madej, which left Ryan feeling accomplished and excited. But walking up to the intimidation building made Ryan feel small. He was just some guy from some small time podcast, and times like this made Ryan insecure about that. 

He tried his best to shrug off his nerves as he stepped into the building. The lobby was pretty straight forward, a monotone design and a sandy blond haired receptionist sitting at a desk. Ryan walked up to the receptionist.

“I’m here for a meeting with Shane Madej,” he did his best to muster up a confident voice, but the receptionist seemed hardly interested anyway. 

“You must be Ryan. I’ll let Mr. Madej know you’re here. You can take a seat while you wait,” the receptionist pointed Ryan towards some uncomfortable looking chairs as he turned to his phone to do what Ryan assumed was calling Madej on the intercom.

Ryan tried to remember everything he could about the guy he was meeting. Owner of the Madej institute, the building Ryan was sitting in. A world renowned skeptic. Published author. Lover of science. Grew up in Chicago. Apparently a grade-A douchebag. That’s all Ryan had been able to dig up on the guy. For a guy so intent on disproving ghosts, he sure did try and live like one. Without a trace.

Ryan looked up when he heard a door open. Out stepped an intimidatingly tall man in a button up shirt and clear glasses. 

“You must be Mr. Bergara,” Madej spoke as he crossed the room to greet Ryan.

“Please,” Ryan extended his hand out to greet Madej. “Call me Ryan.”

Madej took Ryan’s hand and shook it firmly. “In that case, you can call me Shane,” Shane smiled what seemed to be a genuine smile at Ryan. “You can follow me into my office. Andrew, let me know if anyone important calls.”

“Will do,” the receptionist, Andrew, answered.

Ryan followed Shane into his office. The office was much brighter than the waiting room. The walls were covered in interesting paintings and there were a few odd trinkets on the desk. For some reason, this wasn’t what Ryan had pictured. To be fair, “world renowned skeptic” and “a small plushie of movie theatre popcorn” aren’t usually connected in Ryan’s mind. 

“Have a seat,” Shane offered as he sat in his own chair behind the desk. Ryan accepted the offer and sat in a chair on the other side of the desk. “So, you’re a persistent one.”

Ryan shrugged sheepishly in response. “What can I say? I’m committed to the story.” 

“What exactly is said story?” 

“Well, first of all,” Ryan pulled his small recording device out of his pocket, “is it alright if I record this?”

“Yeah, that’s alright.” Shane nodded in response.

Ryan started recording. “So, Mr. Madej-”

“Shane.”

“Right, Shane. I’ve been interviewing quite a few ghost hunters for my podcast, and your name seems to sneak its way into every conversation.”

Shane snorted in response. “What can I say? ‘Ghost hunters,’” Shane put the title in air quotes, “seem to love to hate me.”

“Yeah, I picked up on a bit more hate than love. I mean, you are quite the skeptic.”

“I call it believing reasoning. You call it skepticism. Tomayto, tomahto.”

“Right, well, either way you’ve made yourself a bit infamous in the ghost hunting community. You’ve even offered a one million dollar prize to anyone who can give you rock hard evidence of ghosts. That certainly is a lot of confidence on a topic you can’t really be sure of.”

Shane shook his head slightly. “I would argue that I can be sure of it. Listen, Ryan, I’ve spent my fair share of time in spooky situations. If someone was going to see a ghost, it would’ve been me. Nonetheless, I’ve seen nothing.”

“You said you’ve spent your fair share of time in spooky situations. What does that mean?”

Before Shane could answer, a voice came from the phone in his room. The receptionist. 

“Mr. Madej, Mr. Cooper is here to speak with you,” Andrew informed Shane.

“Thank you, Andrew. I’ll be right out.” Shane turned to Ryan with an apologetic smile on his face. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to take care of something. Make yourself comfortable while you wait here.” 

Shane was out of his seat before Ryan could respond. Ryan waited until the door shut before he took out his phone and typed the name “Mr. Cooper” into his notes. Ryan was interested in who the mysterious Mr. Madej was so eager to see. He cautiously stood up and looked around Shane’s desk for any mention of the name. When nothing turned up, Ryan moved towards a cabinet in the room. He opened it and found a mix of VHS tapes and DVDs. This peaked Ryan’s interest. Anything on a VHS had to be pretty old and valuable enough to keep. What peaked Ryan’s interest even more was the color of the recordings. Almost every case was white, but on the bottom two rows there were about a dozen black tapes. Ryan was squatting down to look at one when he heard the door open. He instantly straightened back up into place. 

“I see you’ve made yourself comfortable.” Shane looked more amused than mad.

“Yeah, sorry,” Ryan smiled apologetically. 

“That’s alright.”

“Hey, not to be too nosey, but why are those tapes a different color than the rest?” Ryan asked curiously. Shane’s carefree expression soured as he followed Ryan’s line of sight to the tapes.

“No real reason. Just packaging I guess. I actually did run into something important I have to do, though. If you don’t mind we can reschedule the rest of this interview.”

For a second Ryan hesitated, a little taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor. “Oh, uh, yeah that’s fine. Thank you for having me.”

“Of course. I trust you can see yourself out. Goodbye, Mr. Bergara.”

Ryan left the building with more questions than he’d entered. Why had Shane spent time in spooky situations? Who was the mysterious Cooper guy? What was on those types? Why did Shane get so weird when Ryan brought them up? All Ryan knew was that he was determined to find answers, and when Ryan was determined to do something, it got done.


End file.
